MSU Research Could Improve Cyanobacteria Use in Biofuel Production

Overexposure to sunlight is damaging to natural and artificial photosynthetic systems. Nature has solved the problem through "non-photochemical-quenching", which allows solar energy to be dissipated as heat from one molecular system to another.

A team led by Cheryl Kerfeld, the Hannah Distinguished Professor of Structural Bioengineering in the Michigan State University-DOE Plant Research Lab and an affiliate of Berkeley Lab's Physical Biosciences Division, has discovered a key event in the energy-quenching process.

The team discovered that in cyanobacteria, the mechanism is triggered by a shift of a single carotenoid pigment in a protein which causes the protein to change from an orange light-sensing state to a red photoprotective state.

Ryan Leverenz, the paper's lead author and a research scientist in Kerfeld's MSU lab said "Now that we've identified how this molecular switch works, we can potentially fine-tune the process in order to improve cyanobacteria's viability as a biofuel."